Printing on colored wrap film...

[Patentagosse]

anybody ever tried to print directly on colored wrap film?

I have a challenging color to match but it would be way easier to print black over red vinyl (main and secondary copies can be applied as 2nd layer).

Here's what the job should looks like. Client insist to get closer colormatch as possible but I think I cannot hit the red (all my current test print are way too brownish or pinkish... 'Can only be in the neighborhood by doing the print in 2 passes (VersaWork) but it drops a s***load of ink (job is 52" x 225")

Sure I can use regular cast vinyl but 'would prefer air-egress type of material to speed-up installation step.

Please give your inputs.

 

[J Hill Designs]

my thought is this:

this film comes pre-laminated
printing on laminates works fine

ergo this should work fine

 

[Patentagosse]

when I'm trying to print red-to-black fade, it creates a weird "transition" color in the middle. The only way I had found to print a nice fade w/o colorshift is by doing it with dot fader but this file is going to be too big for software to handle.

Here's one I've done few years ago...
(black gradient + translucent colors on silver met.)

 

[MikePro]

yes/no. depending on your ink set.
also depending on whether you can print white for certain elements of your print.

an additional issue that may arise, is that the material wasn't prepared for print... so there might be some random debris/fingerprints throughout the roll depending on how it was handled during production/packaging, that could show-up as a blemish/fisheye when printed.

 

[synergy_jim]

anybody ever tried to print directly on colored wrap film?

I have a challenging color to match but it would be way easier to print black over red vinyl (main and secondary copies can be applied as 2nd layer).

Here's what the job should looks like. Client insist to get closer colormatch as possible but I think I cannot hit the red (all my current test print are way too brownish or pinkish... 'Can only be in the neighborhood by doing the print in 2 passes (VersaWork) but it drops a s***load of ink (job is 52" x 225")

Sure I can use regular cast vinyl but 'would prefer air-egress type of material to speed-up installation step.

Please give your inputs.

another option would be to lay black down on clear as a half tone fade. it would look very cool and not expose the red vinyl to ink.

 

[J Hill Designs]

create the dot fade gradient in illustrator/corel as vector. file should not be that large at all (esp if you turn off .tiff preview in eps export)

 

[Patentagosse]

Roland VS-540 using OEM EcoSol Max ink.

All I want is printing the background (black ink over red vinyl). Name+logo will be printed separately and applied as 2nd layer

 

[J Hill Designs]

pretty sure it will work fine.

as said, relaminate
as said, might have contamination

 

[Patentagosse]

another option would be to lay black down on clear as a half tone fade. it would look very cool and not expose the red vinyl to ink.

Good point but now it means working with 3 layers of vinyl... wrap red + clear cast + cast laminate... cost is on the rise...

 

[Patentagosse]

create the dot fade gradient in illustrator/corel as vector. file should not be that large at all (esp if you turn off .tiff preview in eps export)

I used a software called VectoRaster which turns image into vector dot fader with many options (dot size, dot shape, spacing between dot...) and it allow user to save in EPS, PDF and TIF. I use to save in EPS, import the whole file in Flexi, assign a solid color to the dots so that way I'm 100% sure that I control the start and finish colors of the gradient but... it creates a gazillion of control point so even if the file isn't "that" big in size, it almost freeze the computer when you move the group of dots. It can takes up to 10min. to redraw after you move (!!!)

Everytime I'm about to hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE thinking it's frozen... suddently it's back at work. If you use bigger dot to reduce the number, it's now noticable from the ground. I'm not looking for cartoon-type filling

 

[Patentagosse]

Is there a special plug-in or feature inside Illustrator to work with dot fader w/o having to create it dot-by-dot?

I have CS5 but rarely work with it. I'm a Flexi / Photoshop guy (...)

 

[J Hill Designs]

http://shirtoid.com/tutorials/halftone-gradient-in-illustrator/

others can be found by searching 'halftone gradient vector illustrator' or the like

 

[jfiscus]

We do it all the time. Haven't had anything odd happen like described above though.
I would suggest putting a block of similar color behind your artwork in a layer that can be removed later while setting up your artwork.
I would also suggest running a (scaled down) test print before sending the big job.

 

[Patentagosse]

http://shirtoid.com/tutorials/halftone-gradient-in-illustrator/

others can be found by searching 'halftone gradient vector illustrator' or the like

File is too big, Illy cannot handle it until I dropped the raster resolution to 72dpi but the dot are now from different shapes and the fade is stepped. Badly. (see attached screenshot)

I turned to my trusty old MAC where the Vectoraster software is loaded (Mac only...). I've been able to set the numbers to an acceptable result. File is 31Mo and contains 5 493 270 points.

Woot Woot !

 

[SightLine]

The problem you are running into is all the common halftone methods and tutorials for Illustrator rely on rasterizing then vectorizing the result. This causes way way more control points than what is needed and not exactly perfect circles which truly only need 4 points each. If you scale imperfect circles too much you start seeing the flats on them as well. The only good solution I've found is a plugin called Phantasm which gives you some awesome color controls in Illustrator as well as a perfect halftone generator....

I think they also have a trial version but I'm unsure of the limitations of the trial.

 

[OADesign]

when I'm trying to print red-to-black fade, it creates a weird "transition" color in the middle. The only way I had found to print a nice fade w/o colorshift is by doing it with dot fader but this file is going to be too big for software to handle.

Here's one I've done few years ago...
(black gradient + translucent colors on silver met.)

I see your trying to solve the issue by building that art with vectors, but I will throw this out there anyway.
If your having trouble with that weird transition color, try creating the gradient another way.
Instead of going directly from say red to black as a gradient color on a single object or layer, try multiple layers or objects.
First layer red, then next layer a black gradient 100% opacity on one end and 0% on the other. Works for me in illustrator and photoshop to solve that "weird in the middle" thing that happens when blending colors.
Plus I think it gives me more control of the final look. Just a thought.

 

[crystalcoastgraphics]

How about trying to hit that red better if that is the main problem. I am assuming you are using spot colors. Once you assign the spot color red (maybe pr43k) try adjusting the cyan level inside of versaworks in the file setup tab. You can get a much better red that way. Bump it up from 0 to like 8 or 10. See if that fixes your printed red.

 

[SightLine]

Another couple of important things to consider in Illustrator when doing gradients. If you are using spot colors, after you create you gradient and it looks crappy, select each of the colors on the gradient tool and change them to CMYK or RGB. Or better yet use the Blend tool....

 

[jfiscus]

When creating a blend gradient, say from red to black in cmyk, you have to consider all 4 channels.
If your gradient starts at o/100/100/0 for read and you want it to end in black do not make the black end 0/0/0/100. To achieve a correct fade/blend your black end of the gradient should be 0/100/100/100.
otherwise your "weird in the middle" is where the red and yellow channels are fading to 0, and the black channel is just starting to pick up from 0. Therefore there is no "100% solid" fill at that point and things look weird as you're taking away 50% from both colors there in the middle, and neither are happy; there's just no color data.

Printing a gradient onto a solid (the topic of this thread) should help illustrate this point, maybe better than I can explain it. See my attached illustration for further explanation.
If you've ever worked in offset printing and used duotones, hopefully this makes some sense to you also.

 

[Fastsigns2041]

Have bed painted red, apply printed/cut decals, ???, profit.